Stepping back from Irenaeus' farrago, it's worthwhile to note that in antiquity there was, in general, a 'single sex' understanding of biology : females were incomplete males. Thus a male could be termed female in terms of gradations in the social/cosmic hierarchy. This is explicitly stated regarding Sophia/Wisdom by Philo, On Flight and Finding, 50-52 :
"And it is Wisdom's name that the holy oracles proclaim by 'Bethuel', a name meaning in our speech 'Daughter of God'...
"He called Bethuel Rebecca's father. How, pray, can Wisdom, the daughter of God, be rightly spoken of as a father ? Is it because, while Wisdom's name is feminine, her nature is masculine ? As indeed all the virtues have women's titles, but powers and activities of consummate men. For that which comes after God, even though it were chiefest of all other things, occupies a second place, and therefore was termed feminine to express its contrast with the Maker of the Universe who is masculine, and its affinity to everything else. For pre-eminence always pertains to the masculine, and the feminine always comes short of and is lesser than it.
"Let us, then, pay no heed to the discrepancy in the gender of the words, and say that the daughter of God, even Wisdom, is not only masculine but father, sowing and begetting in souls aptness to learn, discipline, knowledge, sound sense, good and laudable actions."
"And it is Wisdom's name that the holy oracles proclaim by 'Bethuel', a name meaning in our speech 'Daughter of God'...
"He called Bethuel Rebecca's father. How, pray, can Wisdom, the daughter of God, be rightly spoken of as a father ? Is it because, while Wisdom's name is feminine, her nature is masculine ? As indeed all the virtues have women's titles, but powers and activities of consummate men. For that which comes after God, even though it were chiefest of all other things, occupies a second place, and therefore was termed feminine to express its contrast with the Maker of the Universe who is masculine, and its affinity to everything else. For pre-eminence always pertains to the masculine, and the feminine always comes short of and is lesser than it.
"Let us, then, pay no heed to the discrepancy in the gender of the words, and say that the daughter of God, even Wisdom, is not only masculine but father, sowing and begetting in souls aptness to learn, discipline, knowledge, sound sense, good and laudable actions."
Statistics: Posted by mbuckley3 — Sat May 18, 2024 2:23 pm